Thursday, May 17, 2012

So, I know I blogged about how I went for my physical and they said "So HEY what's up with your EKG this looks like someone who had a heart attack."Well they didn't quite say it like that. In my memory it was that casual but it wasn't.Yesterday, I spent most of my day at the cardiology department at the hospital.

I went for a stress test and who knew those take hours and hours? Not me.I learned that first of all they start an IV and shoot you up with radioactive stuffs so they can see your heart better with a big fancy machine. The radioactive stuffs is in a lead case, yet you are supposed to believe it's safe to be inside your body. Call me nutty, but if it isn't safe to HANDLE how can it be safe inside my body? But I digress...So I waited the requisite 15-20 minutes - watching the View in a little lounge area, and then went in and laid down in the imaging room. This bit was kind of surreal because - THEY HAD A NEW MACHINE.It was the first day the machine was in production and literally the hospital administrator was there, people FROM SIEMENS who make the machine, and like every imaging person in the hospital. All getting trained and learning ABOUT the machine.Everyone was EXCITED about the machine. So I just laid down on the table and was slid under this huge thing with giant panels that rotated around my body. They said the old machine would take 20-30 minutes but this new one would take 4.And that was true, it totally took like 4 minutes.Then - the machine went BING and I slid out from under the panels.I want to know what comedian designed the machine to go BING.

Then after a bit they took me in to do the stress test. Except, when they had me lay down and did an EKG like that the cardiologist got a furrowed brow and and started mumbling about left bundling, and called someone else over to look and there was more mumbling and then they told me that they'd have to do a "chemical" stress test instead of the treadmill because treadmill was going to give a false positive due to some nerve stuff they were seeing in my heart.

And without further ado the nurse pushed something into my IV and I was running for my life. Well, my heart and lungs were. It's like the worst feeling in the world, or one of them. Like a huge man is sitting on your chest, like your heart is trying to leap out of your chest, like you're out of body but stuck in your body and the whole time they are asking "Are you ok? Does your heart hurt? Are you ok?" and I am just laying there trying NOT to freak out and trying to answer. Finally they said it was over and yes, the invisible fat man got off my chest.

At that point the cardiologist brought over my EKG and started talking about branch bundle clusters and that it's typically seen post heart attack, saying what his test showed was that I had some post heart attack behavior electrically going on in my heart, one side of my nerves wasn't working right.

NOW SNACK TIME!

I was taken back to the lounge and the sweetest nurses in the world brought me some lunch while I watched some show called CHEW.COM or something, (it was actually sort of cute) and ate my turkey sandwich and tried to digest that I had in fact had a heart attack.

There were a lot of other people in the lounge, all of them inpatient I realized as I kept getting referred to as "our outpatient". One guy was asleep and I could totally see his balls under his hospital gown. I didn't snap pics bcse that's rude but I did text people and laugh cuz truly I needed to laugh.

Then back to imaging where a NEW crowd of people had gathered to see the machine that goes BING. And 4 more minutes of giant machine fun.

After that, they took me to a room to take out my IV and check my BP and stuff. They said that their final results would be determined by combining all the imaging and the EKG results and stuff and I would get a call. One of the nuclear imaging people said they never get people as young as me in there and not to worry he thought I'd be fine.

I thought I was fine until I got to the car and called home, and started sobbing hysterically because you know, HEART ATTACK.

I also felt sick and horrible from all the medicine just BAD, and sort of overwhelmed by nerves. I called work and said I couldn't be in after all and went home where the husband tucked me into bed and closed the bedroom door. I don't even remember falling asleep.

He came in about three hours later and cut off my hospital bands and informed me that the hospital called.

I DID NOT HAVE A HEART ATTACK. MY HEART IS FINE.

Well, it's not fine. It's weird. I will end up talking to my regular doctor about the branch bundle cluster thing however - the NEW FANCY MACHINE THAT GOES BING has declared me to be ok.

1 comments:

Laura
said...

Do you suppose that the big machine that goes 'bing' and the lead-cased radioactive waste is all just a big placebo thing to induce the stress that they are wanting to measure? I'm not sure that they'd need to pump anything into your veins to get you stressed after all that... All's well that ends well, I guess, but it sounds like the suck to experience.